Magnets
by MssrTragicandConsumptive
Summary: When two forces collide, the effects last a lifetime...or longer.  Remus/Sirius Wolfstar


_**Hello everyone! This is a very special update because this isn't just written by me, but by Mssr Pointy-Tongued Majesty Padfoot! This is actually dedicated entirely to you Pads, because the kissing scene in this story inspired the whole thing, and I have, for some time, been trying to think of a story to go with this song. Together we write some truly amazing wolfstar if I do say so myself.**_

_**So this is for you.**_

_**Mssr TaC**_

Things don't always happen in a way that people plan them to. Sometimes things go barreling out of control even when people are trying their very hardest not to let them slip from their fingers. However, the very best things in life tend happen against our will. Not because it is meant to be alarming or troubling, but because some things are beyond our very understanding, and it is better to just let them happen. It is at times like there were things when magic occurs.

When forces collide, exponential changes materialize. When two people collide, it doesn't just change lives, it changes hearts. If someone could explain why it is these things happen, then the world would be absolutely no fun at all.

So what happens when the Moon and a Star collide?

Something Brilliant.

_Heart beats fast  
>Colors and promises<br>How to be brave  
>How can I love when I'm afraid to fall<br>But watching you stand alone  
>All of my doubt suddenly goes away somehow<em>

Remus Lupin had spent his entire life trying to be strong. He was strong for his mother. He was strong for his father. He was strong not because he wanted to be, but because if he gave in, he would loose himself entirely. The thing is, even though he had spent so much time growing and learning to be strong, very few good things happened to him because of it. He was guarded emotionally, always afraid to let people in past a certain point. He feared betrayal, abandonment, and most of all, disappointing or hurting the people he cared about. He was so good at distancing himself that it became second nature.

As his mother had told him so many times, 'you can't love others until you love yourself'. That was so much easier said than done. Especially when you become a monster once a month. How can you possibly let someone into your life, let alone say 'Hello! I am Remus Lupin, and I am a werewolf!' with a jolly smile stuck to your face? It didn't happen.

However, this was all before he had met Sirius Black. They say that sometimes meeting a person who will play a big role in your life is like being hit by a meteor. You can't mistake it. However, meeting Sirius Black was like getting hit with a star. At first it wasn't even in a good way. After all, who wants to get pumpkin juice dumped on your head the first day of you seven years at Hogwarts?

But he wasn't afraid.

Sirius wasn't afraid to be close to him.

As a matter of fact, he went out of his way to be in Remus' back pocket.

_One step closer_

"Why do you do that?" Remus asked one day when Sirius sat for three hours watching him read without saying a word.

"Why do I do what?" Sirius asked, chewing a hangnail on his thumb and looking at him with those amazing grey eyes that were entirely too bright for the dim interior of the library.

"Why do you follow me around? I'm not interesting at all!" Remus said in what was suppose to be an aggravated voice. It came out sort of small and fearful for someone who spent so much time trying to make himself look confident and unbothered by daily happenings.

"You are actually very interesting. You just keep telling yourself you aren't." Sirius said pointedly, the bounced to his feet, walking away.

As Remus watched the head of black hair bob away from him he felt something swell inside him. Something warm and confusing. He looked back to his book, a little smile on his lips.

"Me…_interesting_…"

_I have died everyday waiting for you  
>Darling don't be afraid I have loved you<br>For a thousand years  
>I'll love you for a thousand more<em>

People are smart. Always give them the benefit of the doubt. Just because your parents know nothing about you, what you are thinking, or how you handle things, doesn't mean that all people are like that. As a matter of fact, always assume that they will figure you out, and possibly, that the boy names Sirius Black who aces all his quizzes without studying and tell you what all the teaches had for breakfast accurately just by looking at them will realize you are a horrible liar.

Remus had never been good at lying. He had to lie to hide his deepest and most life altering secret from the world, but at the same time, he had not been gifted with the ability to look someone in the eye and tell them that he was a perfectly normal, skinny, slightly too-old-for-his-age boy. Who happened to enjoy reading muggle classics so thick that even the teacher thought it was a bit odd. Sirius knew when Remus was lying every time he tried too.

This was a problem.

"Why are you leaving tomorrow if we have a test in transfiguration? Can't your parents take you next weekend?" Sirius asked as he collected his ingredients for potions and stored them in their respective containers.

"Because my aunt is very ill, you see…she wants to speak with me. Says I am the only one who understands her. It's the fever." A peaky looking Remus lied shakily through his teeth as he crammed everything back into his bag. It was bad enough to have double potions today on top of everything, but getting interrogated certainly wasn't helping his mood any.

"Your Aunt has been sick all year?" Sirius asked slowly, watching Remus' every move, especially his eyes.

"Yes-" Remus said abruptly, staring at his hands. "Very. She could pass at any time!"

With that said Remus skittered from the room and out into the crowded corridors, heading straight for the Hospital Wing before Sirius could see where it was he was actually heading…and before he deduced that Remus didn't actually have an aunt at all, but an uncle who had been dead for decades.

Sirius watched Remus go and shook his head.

"Whatever you say Remus." He slid the book on lycanthropy out of his bag and glanced at the cover a moment before heading out the door himself.

_Time stands still  
>Beauty in all she is<br>I will be brave  
>I will not let anything take away<br>What's standing in front of me  
>Every breath<br>Every hour has come to this_

Sometimes fate works in funny ways. It brings people together that should have, in societies eyes, never met. For instance, a very poor half-blood werewolf and a very rich pure blood from a very famous family. Two people who would never have met if only because they were suppose to by some force greater than anything they understood at the time. This is the only way Remus can explain how he and Sirius can be best mates.

After all, Sirius' mother hates Remus to the ends of the earth and back.

Not to mention that there seems to be some invisible force that brings the two of them together, even when they are apart. They were always together in a way that wasn't like with any of their other friends. It was something special neither of them talked about.

_One step closer_

"I don't want to go." Sirius said weakly as they said goodbye at the end of third year. The train station was crowded and Sirius' mother's butler would sweep in to collect him at any given minute. They had already said goodbye to James. It was too much. Sirius caught Remus by the sleeve. "I can't go back the Moony, _please_!"

Remus hated seeing him so horribly desperate. Hated seeing the look in his eyes. He had been so calm until this point, had stayed so composed. More than likely for James' sake. The two of them were brothers in spirit and no one argued that. Remus caught Sirius' hands in his own and his heart fluttered slightly against his chest, making him breathless.

"Look," He said quickly, glancing around. "You are never alone."

"I will be!" Sirius said in a voice an octave higher than normal.

"No you aren't ever. Because the moon you see is the same one I see."

At that moment the moon no longer was something Remus was afraid of. A wonderful idea had blossomed into his mind. It became something else.

"The moon you look up and see is the same one I look at every night." He said to clarify. He could see the butler elbowing through the crowds now and he felt a surge of panic. Sirius' hands tightened on his.

"Promise me you will look at it ever night." Sirius said suddenly, grasping the idea and what Remus was trying to say.

"I promise. Sirius Black I promise you I will look up at the moon every night and you will never be alone." Remus said. Sirius nodded.

And Remus did. Every single night.

_I have died everyday waiting for you  
>Darling don't be afraid I have loved you<br>For a thousand years  
>I'll love you for a thousand more<em>

There is something about people. No matter where they come from, no matter how they grow up, who they are raised by, loved, unloved, rich, poor, gay, straight. People are known for their hearts. For the ability to love. When two people meet who are meant to be together, it is like they are magnets. Pulling together slowly. Most resist, but in the end the inevitable happens.

They collide.

This is how the very lonely moon found it's star.

Remus was a werewolf who lived by the pull of the moon, and Sirius was the brightest star in Orion's belt. Apart they glittered alone in their own spots in the sky, lighting the way and shinning vaguely. When put together, however, The whole universe dulled in compassion.

The moon and the star were thousands of years old. So old that they were more than likely waiting for each other long before earth blinked into existence.

The summer night air was sweet over the grassy fields of Hogwarts as two seventh years spent their last moments on campus sitting beneath their favorite tree.

"You know what?" Sirius asked, his arms wrapped around Remus' waist tenderly. It had been like this for a long time now. They were inseparable. In the same room they were drawn together helplessly. They had fought it valiantly. After all, Remus certainly wasn't keen on being a gay, half-blood, half-breed. Sirius wasn't sure what he had wanted at all, he just knew that with Remus it was more right than any of the girls he had ever tried to go with.

"What?" Remus tilted his head back so that he was resting against Sirius' chest.

"We were only ever an arm's length away." Sirius said softly.

"What?" Remus looked confused as he regarded Sirius from an almost upside-down angle.

"Remember what you said about the moon?" Sirius lifted and arm up and touched the moon, as if cradling it in his fingertips. "See?"

Remus looked at the moon, then at Sirius' hand. He then lifted his own and laced his fingers though Sirius'.

"That means no matter where we are, we can always be holding hands."

"And no matter where we are…" Sirius kissed his hair. "We are always together."

_And all along I believed I would find you  
>Time has brought your heart to me<br>I have loved you for a thousand years  
>I'll love you for a thousand more<em>

Sometimes people fall in love. Not just a little bit of love that allows you to deal with them on a daily basis, but real love. Like the things you read about in classic novels, or see in movies. The kind of love that makes your heart ache in the most wonderful and painful way humanly imaginable. Love that could be written into a book and never forgotten. Fingers that fit perfectly together and caresses that linger on the skin for years after.

Sometimes people feel more than their body can simply contain for another person.

Sometimes, you can feel all of this, and you receive not a single thing.

How.

How could this happen.

How could he love him so much and loose him.

It was suppose to be forever.

How could he loose everything?

Remus could feel the ache in his chest. Dull and throbbing. He felt like he was half of something. Like a whole half of his being had been torn away and now he had to go on living as a half of something better.

He looked around the little house. Panes in empty windows streaked with rain. A garden of forgotten roses. This would be the last time he would see this house. His and Sirius' house. Where their hearts had beat together as one. Where they had planned to raise a family.

Remus ran a hand along the counter that had once been full of mugs drying on a towel, and little canisters of tea. It was empty now. Nothing on the scratched marble surface. All the shelves that had held books now looked like dark wholes on the blank walls.

This little house was just like Remus.

Missing everything inside it that made it whole.

He walked over to the door and opened it slowly. He looked over his shoulder at the dark room, then stepped outside and locked it tight. He looked to the sky.

Peaking through the clouds was the moon, half of what it could be.

Remus lifted his hand up and touched the moon with shaking fingertips and closed his eyes.

"I'm so sorry."

_One step closer_

People loose things. Sometimes they loose everything. Sometime they loose more than that. They loose things very close to their hearts and other people are forced to live in the memories long forgotten. Ghosts of touches. A reminisce of a kiss leaving an icy perch on lips long unloved for the owner is to broken to think of trying to love another. Or possible they cannot because what they had the first time was so special that it might taint the memory of when they were happiest.

Remus knew the day he saw Sirius again that this wasn't the Sirius he had known. Who had loved him and kissed him and held him in his sleep. Warm and safe. Perfect. This was a shadow of that Sirius. He only remembered the bad things, and had forgotten all that was good. Including Remus himself.

Remus nearly jumped out of his skin as the door across from him slammed. He knocked over the stack of books on his table and opened his own door, looking at the one covered in sticky notes across from him.

Sirius was staring at the sticky notes that had taken over his room. Trying to force himself to remember the small details that he knew were missing... but he couldn't do it. He clutched his head, resisting the urge to slam it against a wall. Instead he kicked at it, and cursed loudly as he felt a snap and throbbing pain swelled in his foot.

Remus opened the door, sticking his pallid face through the crack, lank graying hair in his face as he regarded the other man. "Sirius?"

"I hate him." He hissed, sitting on his bed and less than gently taking his boot off to look at his now-broken toe.

Remus stepped inside and closed the door. He crossed the room and stood in front of Sirius. "I presume you mean Severus? I can honestly say by this point I am not terribly fond of him myself." He pulled his wand from his robes with his bandaged hand. "Let me see that."

Sirius didn't look up but he held out his foot, which had swollen considerably in the short amount of time. He'd do it himself, but memories weren't the only things lost in Azkaban.

Remus caught him gently by the ankle, and with a deft flourish of his wand, Sirius' foot repaired itself perfectly, the swelling vanishing after a few seconds. "However, taking your feelings out on a wall is not only unhelpful, but destructive."

"It was that or blow him to bits." He growled bitterly, flexing his foot.

"Or you could ignore him." Remus released his gentle hold on Sirius' ankle and replaced his wand inside his robes, leaning against the offending wall. There were large dark circles under his eyes. Accentuated by the dim lighting of the room.

"I can't ignore him, Remus. He's like that large, overgrown zit on your chin that won't go away no matter how many times you wash your face, or use a spell on it-it keeps coming back and it's always there, taunting you!" Sirius glowered at a sticky note ("Horrible hair-cut incident of 1976").

"Yes, he does remind me of a zit as well, but fuming about it won't help you. Sometimes the best way to remember things is to do things that you use too. You've been retracing your steps...maybe redoing things you do remember will be helpful. Though I suppose beating Snape's face in would be helpful. Since you did that plenty back in school." Remus added thoughtfully.

"...I don't know how to fix this one, Remus. I don't know how to 'retrace my steps.'" He murmured, suddenly very quiet.

Remus put a finger to his lips, thinking. "What do you remember so far?" He glanced around the room at the sticky notes. "You were a damn fine chess player. One of the few in Griffindor who could beat me."

Sirius glanced up. "Just small, vague things. Me visiting you when you were particularly consumptive, one summer. Trying to muggle-camp with James and his parents, and you and Peter."

"You visited me a lot when I was at my worst." Remus nodded. "And when I wasn't."

"...you're in a lot of my memories. Even when James wasn't." He puzzled, his eyebrows coming together.

Remus blinked, his face coloring, but his eyes filling with repressed pain. Pain that was deep and made his heart ache so badly it was like he had swallowed a poorly made acidic potion that was meant for boiling hearts in their respective chests.

"I mean, this one-" he pulled a sticky note from one of the posts on his bed. "'Muggle movies with Remus,' and 'The Re-Interpretation of Romeo and Juliet, summer 1978.'"

Remus swallowed. He remembered that movie. It had started to rain on the walk home. It had been the first time...the first...He closed his eyes. It was all like a dream now. All of those times, the looks and touches. They felt like they belonged to a different world. To a different person entirely.

Sirius stared at Remus. There was that expression again, the one that made his heart tug in a strange way, the one that made him want to make that frown go away. He wanted to know why, and it showed in the way his own lips pulled into a line.

Remus gave him a pained look, then tried to force it into a more comfortable look. He had long ago come to terms with the fact that he had lost Sirius. What they had had was brief and wonderful and…gone. "It's not your fault. Don't look like that."

"I don't like that look." He frowned still.

"I don't like the look you have either." Remus countered.

"Whenever I bring up something I remember, you get that look!" He argued, getting to his feet.

"Well it's not exactly easy to watch someone you care about so much go through something like this!" Remus said sharply, a look of irritated pain crossing his expressive face, tugging the worry lines at his eyes.

"You act like it personally affects you!" He snapped back, gritting his teeth.

Remus stopped. All the anger vanished from his face replaced by a look of hurt so immense that it made his eyes sting. He opened his mouth to say something but didn't know what he to say. Who would?

Seeing this new look stung Sirius. He recoiled a bit, realizing now that he had gotten come so close to Remus, to the point that he was trying to tower over him. "Remus... I'm... I'm sorry." He could feel his chest tightening. He had done something incredibly wrong, and even though he didn't understand why this new look was shadowing Remus' face, he knew he never wanted to see this look again.

Remus' fingers shook at his sides and he looked at Sirius. He didn't understand anything that went through this man's head. He hardly ever had. Only James could, and James wasn't here to translate. He had made a promise to Sirius all those years ago, and it still held strong in his chest. Being told that, he privately wondered if he was a fool for waiting so long and hoping maybe things would work themselves out.

Sirius collapsed back on his bed, slumping and staring at the floor. He felt disgusting. He remembered, then, a time when he had snapped at Remus like that... it had been Halloween, 1981. The day James and Lily had died. That morning. He couldn't remember why, but for some reason, he and Remus had fought. Over what, he couldn't remember either. In his house... their house? He made a pained noise and clutched his head, leaning his elbows on his knees as he curled over himself.

Remus looked at Sirius and felt everything he had been holding onto all these years slipping away. Sirius had forgotten everything they had ever been and he was cursed to remember it all. What did that say about what they had been? What did that say about love? He brought a hand to his aching chest. He felt like he couldn't breathe. Each gasp stuck in the aching goop clogging his chest and heart. He looked at his feet and tried to force the pain back. He had done it once, he could do it again.

That house would not get out of his head. Small. There was a small garden out in front... he hated gardening. Why-Remus was gardening, a little dirt smudged on his nose. Remus had looked up at him, and smiled. He couldn't quite remember the words, but he knew that he had said something. And then he had stood up. And had... Sirius' heart ached, then. He looked up at Remus, a chill going through his spine.

Remus' face was in his hands, his shoulders shaking as he worked to regain his composure. It was harder than he thought, almost harder than the first time. Like trying to put a fire out in his chest and all he had was oil.

He needed to know. He needed to know if this memory, this particular one, was real. "...Remus...?" he asked, his throat tight.

Remus looked up slowly, the hair in his face hanging in front of his glowing eyes. "Yes?" He said in a voice of forced calm.

"...did we live together? For a time?"

Something horribly conflicted tore through Remus' expression and he looked like he might cry. It vanished however, shoved away where he kept things he would deal with latter. "Yes. For many years...we did."

"Small house, with a garden in front?" He prompted, something in his chest fluttering. "With brown carpet and curtains that you insisted was taupe and not grey?"

Remus looked at him and nodded slowly. He felt the spring breeze on his cheeks as he planted the white rose bushes along the walk to the little house. Remus remembered then how empty it was as he packed the last of everything into boxes. The sun didn't filter through the windows, it was all rain dripping down curtain-less panes. He couldn't stand to be there without Sirius. The last time he had seen him, it was watching his angry black head bob out the door. He never came home. Remus life became haunted by love he never got to nurse and grow.

"...and you kissed me?" As he spoke, Sirius could remember standing there on the doorstep, Remus's gardening gloves on his chest. He could remember the elation that filled him, how his face always hurt from smiling so much... he could remember how the sun warmed his skin, but how Remus's touch was even warmer. And he didn't need an affirmation from Remus now. He knew what the answer was. He was breathing quicker, now, unable to draw a proper breath.

Remus was watching him round gold eyes. He could feel the kiss on lips that hadn't felt anything like it since. Kissing Sirius and feeling all the breath leave him as joy overfilled his lungs and made the world stop working. The kiss lingering aa his felt Sirius' hands on his neck, fingering the sort-of-curls that formed behind his ear. He was slammed back to reality. The dark little room at Grimmald Place. He hadn't felt anything like Sirius before that, and certainly not afterwards. "We kissed. I kissed you."

Sirius was staring at Remus, feeling a sort of pull towards him now, like two magnet ends. "We loved each other, didn't we...? Like in those muggle books you would used to read. Real."

"I never stopped." Remus said, taking a step closer to Sirius. "I have loved you like one of those foolish muggle book characters...every day since you left." He stopped in front of Sirius. "You made me complete Sirius. I lost everything the day you left."

_One step closer_

"I forgot... in Azkaban." He started, the pull growing stronger as Remus stepped closer. "The dementors... I forgot everything warm, everything good, everything that made me happy. Everything that you... that I remember you were." Shakily, he reached out, daring to take Remus's hand.

Remus felt dizzy with euphoria. "I'm going to wake up any minute now." He whispered. He felt dumb with emotions he had repressed for both of their sakes. 'Love is such a special gift, when it's someone you feel magic with'...where had he heard that? But it was true. Sirius' finger's meshed perfectly with his, and a special magic danced down over his heart, filling him with such immense joy he knew he could only be hallucinating. He hadn't felt like this in more than thirteen years.

"I'm... I'm going to kiss you." He felt like he had said that a lot. Often times he had been teasing, possibly, saying it in moments of silly affection.

Remus looked at him, then closed his eyes. "Kiss me."

Slowly, hesitantly, as if he was afraid that as soon as their lips met he would wake up, he kissed Remus. At first it was just a small, light brush of skin. But then he followed the magnet's pull and pressed his lips fully to Remus's.

Remus waited for the jolt. He waited for the icy ache of shocking himself to consciousness alone in a musty bed in a dark room. Instead, his whole body flushed with warmth it had long forgotten. Sirius' lips fit perfectly to his. He didn't have to think about what he was doing at all. His hands, just as they had when he had kissed Sirius for the first time, knew exactly where to go. The feeling itself made his legs shake as his hands brushed into Sirius' hair. He could feel the way they were being pulled together like their was a string attaching their hearts. He remembered how he had never thought he would get to kiss Sirius the first time either. He had no idea Sirius had any feelings for him at all and had condemned himself to being a silly poofter for falling for his best mate. But it had always been that way with them. There had always been something special. And now it was proving itself, by overcoming everything and making his whole world slow down and speed up at the same time.

Sirius wanted to explode-he had no idea anyone could feel this much for one person. Well, maybe he had forgotten it was possible. He held-no, clutched-Remus to him, his arms tightening around the other man's waist and torso, tangling his fingers in his hair. Like he was going to lose him again, forget he could have ever existed.

Remus didn't dare pull away as something burned in his stomach and released something so wonderful in him that he could barely manage a breath. He didn't dare pull away and restart time. He didn't want to know that this would end. Could end. His heart was beating so hard in his chest that with Sirius against him, he was sure the other man could feel it through their clothes. One heart pressed to another, like they were two pieces of a puzzle, and put together they made this magnificent, breath-taking picture. The whole world fell away as he parted his lips. It was just Sirius and himself and more love than he could physically retain.

He realized that he needed to breathe, and he broke the kiss and started to laugh-light, breathy and completely free of any and all cares and burdens that he had been carrying up until this point. He kept holding on to Remus, their foreheads and entire selves pressed to each other. He was smiling so wide that he was sure his face would break.

Remus was shaking all over as he held himself to Sirius, who was laughing, their noses bumping and his lips pulled into a smile he hadn't seen in such a long time. His fingers where still caught in Sirius' hair as he started laughing as well. He wasn't ashamed, he wasn't in denial. There was nothing but his love and the fact that Sirius was laughing and holding him and that he has just shared the first kiss they had had in years. He always knew that Sirius was the one, but this confirmed it all.

He nudged Remus' cheek with his nose. "It did... all this time, you've been... you've been trying to bring me back... you did." He whispered, his words faltering as his mouth split again into an ecstatic smile. He laughed, almost in disbelief and awe. "You did."

"I brought you back?" Remus looked back at Sirius, then pressed their cheeks together. "I'm sorry it took so long. I will always love you." This was Sirius. His Sirius. Smiling and holding him. Making the world feel so brilliantly right even when everything was so wrong.

_I have died everyday waiting for you  
>Darling don't be afraid I have loved you<br>For a thousand years  
>I'll love you for a thousand more<em>

What happens when the Moon and a Star collide?

The most miraculous love that has ever touched the universe. Explosive, deafening, brilliant, blinding, Love.

Love that isn't just as old as the stars themselves, but that will carry on for a thousand years to come.

Love isn't something someone can go looking for, and it certainly isn't something you can ignore. You will never be happy. That is how people work. The complex workings of the magnets that bring hearts together are a complete mystery, and surprise everyone who had ever truly found the other half of their puzzle.

And just like the Moon and the Star, Remus and Sirius had a love that though unlikely, and sure to fail, pulled through all the odds.

Because they were always just and arms reach away from each other.

And always in the other's heart.

_And all along I believed I would find you  
>Time has brought your heart to me<br>I have loved you for a thousand years  
>I'll love you for a thousand more <em>


End file.
